The present invention relates to containers and more particularly to containers for floppy disks and other computer media.
As personal computers have become more and more commonplace, containers for storing floppy disks (diskettes) and other data storage media used with these computers have become increasingly popular. Typically, floppy disk containers are made of plastic, so as to be lightweight and inexpensive. The containers often provide a "full view" transparent cover, so that computer users can readily locate and identify the disks stored in a container without having to open the container.
Typically, "full view" covers for a floppy disk container are made of transparent plastic such as crystal polystyrene. Unfortunately, such plastic tends to be brittle and fragile. This means that during packing and shipment of the containers, the covers must be specially protected, using outer packing material such as cardboard. This increases the bulk and cost of the shipment.
Some known floppy disk containers can be packed with the base nested in the cover. This tends to reduce the volume occupied by such containers during shipping. However, the reduction in volume is offset by the need to wrap the fragile cover in a protective plastic film to protect against scratches and a strong outer packing box to protect against cracking during impact.
Containers of known design thus do not minimize the amount of extraneous packing material that must be shipped with each container. This increases the production and shipping costs of such containers. It also leads to waste in the form of discarded packing materials that must somehow be disposed of by the consumer.